In Paris, police have stopped charities from serving pork soup at major stations on "administrative grounds," claiming the soup kitchens do not have the correct papers.

The scene has been repeated all over France in recent weeks after complaints that right-wing groups have been serving "racist" food. The groups giving out the soup say it is nothing more than traditional French cuisine. They say that hundreds of homeless people will go hungry.

Angry Muslims retort, however, that they are deliberately offering ham sandwiches and soup made of pork to discriminate against those who cannot eat the meat for religious reasons.

One presumes that Muslim groups face no similar obstacles or protests serving halal foods.

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comments:

Beyond the creeping-facism/xenophobia (choose one), this speaks to a greater problem. What's the point of bringing immigrants into your country if they end up needing soup kitchens? A country cannot let just anybody in, and even immigrants of the highest 'quality' (education, savings, etc.) cannot be expected to hit the ground running, so to speak. The institutions needed to integrate immigrants into the economy are poorly lacking in most Western countries.

This is so ludicrous as to be beyond belief. People are hungry, there is free food. Can't they just pick the pork out of the soup, worship it, or beat it with a stick for after dinner entertainment. Did they all miss puberty when you are suppose to question conformity to nutso beliefs instilled in you by religion.

Jim Fraser, founder and executive director, of Ark Aid Street Mission was pleased at the results of their recent Christmas fundraiser but it failed to garner sufficient funds to see them through until spring.

"We are grateful to our donors but there is only so much they can do. Although we reached our Christmas objective, we failed to get the resources we need to move forward. It's a very competitive environment," Mr. Fraser says.

Londoner this week

*******************Even here in London we have soup kitchen franchises fighting and competing for clientele and money. Maybe they could set up soup kitchens along the lines of religious beliefs. All the non porkers could go to one, the carnivores another. Of course the vegetarians should surely get their own…..and the people who only like to sit amongst others who wear tinfoil hats. I can see Venture doing a feature on this new form of enterprise in a couple of years.

Well,Ent,the initiation of a string of logic often ends in a serious point.The serious point here is that 'nation states' are no more than administrative regions;there is no 'national ownership' of the people, hence there should be no question of non-property owners objecting to the origins of the people who live there, provided these people agree to live under the laws created by the administration.Of course, some regions are more legitimate than others.

We can't let 'just anyone' in because it would cost a prohibitive amount of money to integrate them into the economy - and if we don't make the effort and spend the money we could end up in the same situation as countries like France and Denmark.

I'm not sure what to say to your second post. Non-property owners don't have a legitimate say in public policy?

The only integration anyone, anywhere, needs, is to start doing something useful where they are.By property owners, I mean that the 'public' doesn't have any right to ban foreigners from landing lawfully on the shores of a country, but the people who actually own a stretch of beach do.Because they own it really, not in soe notional fascist sense.

Sorehead Uk.... I like that "do something useful where you are". It could apply to everyone. A philosopy for life. I like useful, compared to useless. I wish it could be applied to our governments, especially our city government. Can you imagine if they actually did what they were elected to do? It just amazes me we pay people to do nothing. It must be nice to have one of those jobs where you do nothing,except spend other people's money, or state the obvious from time to time.